Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Toward a Truce?

Manuel "El Meme" Garza is no insignificant name within the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). The former mayor of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, has been secretary general several times of the PRI, the party in which he has spent more than half a century. He has remained an important operador político, a political fixer, until the present. It therefore is quite notable that Garza recently called for called for a truce, of sorts, with the drug lords, though he adds "in order to catch breath, and later give them a final kick." This disclaimer notwithstanding, it is still noteworthy that a PRI bigshot calls for negotiations with the drug gang. The bigger question, of course, is: How representative is he of the party in general?

I remain close to convinced --let's say rather confident-- that a truce like the one said to have held during the Salinas era is not on its way back, for a variety of reasons (the political risk entailed, the position of the army and the US, the fact that it wouldn't necessarily lead to less violence, et cetera). But I could certainly be wrong. If enough the PRI is behind such a plan and the party wins in 2012, all my logic won't really matter a whole lot. It's perhaps notable that Garza is of the old guard, whereas younger priístas have been more outspoken in their rejection of the pact; one suspects that there could be a division between those who see a return to the 80s as an ideal, and those who want to carve out a sustainable policy for the future.